Kingfisher Air to Layoff 500

Some of you may recall our earlier coverage of the soon to be layoffs at Kingfisher Air, an India-based airline that is having some serious finical troubles at the current moment. For those of you who do not recall reading our earlier coverage on the matter here is an excerpt that will help get you up to speed:

“The company is getting ready to make some serious cuts to their flight schedule and of course their workers. After all when you are only running about 1/4^th of the flights that you were last year you do not need as many employees. The company is getting ready to let go of a number of employees, though they have not given any specific numbers at this time the cuts are sure to be as severe as the service cuts.

Then again this is not the first time that the airline has tried to cut its staff. In 2008

the airline made an unsuccessful attempt to be rid of about 800 workers. That attempt was shut down when the workers, and community members, protested the layoffs in the streets. Though this time the situation may be different because the workers have not been receiving their salaries for several months. Reports that pay has not come for many workers since December of last year have been circulating”

At the time the company was not releasing a lot of details about their impending job cuts. We now know, from reliable sources, that the company is getting ready to layoff about 500 of its workers. Yes, you read that right 500 workers, or about half of the company’s overall workforce is going to get the flush in order to help the company to right its current problems with debt.

The company, which has been in trouble for some time for failure to pay fees to the government and to oil companies, as well as changing flight plans without proper notice to authorities, must now dig its way out of a very deep hole. If they cannot make progress and begin to pay off their fees and debts then they will very likely be shut down by the government.

Of course, Kingfisher Airlines is not the only company to have to make serious cuts to its staff in order to stay in business. In our earlier coverage we took a look at cuts to Aveos airlines:

“So why is Aveos important? Well they recently filed for, and one Bankruptcy protection support in the Canadian courts. That protection, known better as CCAA in Canada will allow the company to stay in business but not without some hefty penalties along the way. One of those penalties has been for the ground level workers of the company. That means the layoffs have arrived.

The company announced the layoffs publically with little fan fair. In their brief statement this was the only place that the workers were mentioned, ‘. As of March 18, 2012, Aveos ceased its Airframe maintenance service operations and will make decisions with respect to its other operations as it seeks Court protection to allow it a period of time to assess its options. Aveos employs approximately 2,600 employees across Canada. ‘”